Category Archives: Humor

Take Your Tea And Shove It

Economy stimulator extraordinaire Iowahawk tells the American Tea Party what to do with their bags:

Thanks to the new federal mortgage bailout bill, Americans like me are finally on track for housing security. Previously facing a $1.2 million debt from three mortgage on a home recently appraised at $43,500, less missing bathroom fixtures and windows, the President’s plan allowed me to renegotiate my payments down to a level that will keep me solvent until at least mid June-ish. Now that my family and various friends from Jimbo’s Tap Room no longer have to worry about having a stable crash pad, we are finally free to resume the spending that will lead America back to economic prosperity.

I wish I could take credit for it, but it took the collective effort of hundreds of thousands of us in the subprime community, working with the financial industry and public sector officials. Unfortunately, there is another group out there who is working to kill important financial bailout reforms just as they are sparking a renaissance in the American housing market. I’m speaking, of course, of the so-called “Tea Party” tax protesters.

I’m sure you’ve heard of them or read their emails: “Wah, I paid my mortgage.” “Wah, I didn’t use my house for an ATM.” “Wah, Dave I need that hundred back I lent you at Christmas.” Now, I’m as sympathetic to a good sob story as anybody, but these whiners have nobody to blame but themselves for their predicament. Anyone who kept track of the Gallup presidential polls last year should have known what was coming, so don’t blame me if you decided to waste your money paying your stupid mortgage. But, in the six-dimensional bizarro world of these noisy tax gripes, they expect me to give up my bailout to pay for their irresponsible lack of foresight! Helloooo?! Beam me up, Scotty!

Some people are just ingrates.

Having Fun With The Speech

Just a few minutes before your opportunity to play O-Bingo.

Well, it’s easier on the liver than a drinking game.

[Update as the speech begins]

I liked this particular subtitle:

“Let me be clear” – Warning to “have your shovel ready.”

I would say that listening to an Obama speech is definitely a shovel-ready project. Hip waders are handy, too.

[Update after half an hour or so]

Well, not that I’m surprised, but he’s laying out a program of every statist/fascist wet dream from TeddyR to present. The State will be responsible for us, from cradle, to early education, to all education, to college for all Americans (is that even a rational goal?) to grave. We no longer have any individual responsibility. The State will provide.

[Update after the speech]

Jim Garaghty notes the irony:

“We are not quitters,” says the guy who left the Senate before serving a full term.

So, what is he running for now?

[Update a couple minutes later]

Matt Welch is already manning his shovel:

The president has not even begun his non-State of the Union tonight, and already (at least according to leaked excerpts) he’s full of s**t…

Wonder what he’ll say now that he’s actually heard it?

[8 PM Pacific update]

I agree:

Oratorywise, so good. Ideawise, so weak. Combination, so dangerous.

Well, the campaign continues. And of course, that’s how propaganda works.

[Update at 8 PM Pacific]

Man bites dog. MSNBC is actually fact-checking the president.

[Updaten at 8:20 PM Pacific]

Apparently, “freedom” isn’t high on the president’s agenda. Not that I’m surprised.

[Update a couple minutes later]

A commenter asks what I thought of Jindal’s speech. I didn’t pay that much attention, but here’s a pan of it.

More Obama Appointment Problems

They continue to grow, and Iowahawk has the exclusive:

The Chu hobo kerfuffle was the latest in a week-long series of Obama administration personnel imbroglis that have led to 36 White House resignations. Former HHS Secretary Tom Daschle and Chief Performance Officer Nancy Killefer saw their tenures cut short over tax issues, which continue to dog Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Geithner is also dogged over dogs, after his failure to report over $14,000 in income from his backyard pitbull fight business. An earlier federal grand jury probe over an alleged 12-state outlaw motorcycle gang methamphetamine network forced Commerce Secretary designate Bill Richardson to resign before Mr.Obama’s inauguration. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis faces continued scrutiny over late taxes, lobbying, and involvement in a Tijuana car theft ring, while National Security advisor Samantha Power has received GOP criticism over her 2006 volunteer work as a sniper for the Taliban. Her boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has yet to deliver a promised ‘full explanation’ after police discovered 11 Laotian prostitutes caged in the garage of her Chappaqua NY home. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack faces increasing questions over his one-time membership in an all-white golf and satanic baby snatching club.

It’s hard to get good help these days.

Reefer Madness

Andrew Stuttaford:

I don’t blame Michael Phelps for apologizing. He has a living to earn, so he did what he had to do.

In the meantime, I merely note that this broken wreck of a man’s failure to win any more than a pathetic fourteen Olympic gold medals (so far) is a terrifying warning of the horrific damage that cannabis can do to someone’s health—and a powerful reminder of just how sensible the drug laws really are.

At any rate, now we know the real story of why he ate 10,000 calories a day…

The Rogue Cotter Pin

Adventures in garage-door repair, with James Lileks:

I pushed it back into place, ran the door down, and discovered something: the end of a cotter pin that’s been there for nine years had managed to turn itself around 90 degrees so it plucked the edge of the sensor bracket as it travelled up. For a moment I felt like a prison warden discovering a six-mile tunnel dug with spoons and thimbles – you have to admire the effort, the ingenuity, the sheer determination. The pin was trying to escape. Day after day, year after year, it had been trying to pull itself out – but like escapees who run into a brick foundation from an old building razed decades before (why didn’t you tell us, Pops? I didn’t know! There was never anything there, not even when I came here in ’21!) it hadn’t counted on the sensor bracket giving the game away.

How could it have?